Feeling old

You know that saying about how when you notice how young policemen are these days, it's time to start feeling old? Well, I don't know about policemen, but the recent news of the passing of Keith Floyd has certainly made me stop and think.

Before wine, food was one of the first things I got really excited about for more than a month or two - an obsession that has stayed with me. Two things promoted this: Robert Carrier's phenomenal Robert Carrier's Cookbook, and Keith Floyd's book Floyd on Fish (plus the occasional TV appearance), both of which owned by my mother. I would pore over these books for hours, reading recipes over and over, imagining the meals I would cook, how I would plan the preparation, and the way I would serve them.

I loved Robert Carrier's tone, his slightly camp flamboyance tempered with a staunchly cheffy and classically-trained firmess and detail. Floyd though, I loved for his portrayal of the only sort of Englishness I'd been able to admire - the sort of enjoyable, cultured, slightly damaged and helpless charm, and above all the knowledge not only of how to have a jolly good time but how to prepare one for others. I remember promising my 13-year-old self that I too, on my 40th birthday, would crack my way through 40 fat oysters, just as Keith had. You watch - only 8 years to go.

So the passing of the second one (Carrier died in 2006) makes me realise that most of the people in the culinary world who I most admire are dead (these two along with MFK Fisher and Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin). This makes me feel old.

Added to this, the Kiwi and I are about to move into a house on Tuesday, a house which we, thanks to the munificence of a local bank, own. Although this is a truly terrifying thought, I'm excited enough about the prospect to make up for it - far from making me feel grown up, it makes me resent that cash paid out ever month for rent a bit less; now it's a mortgage payment it's actually going somewhere sensible for a change. Aged 32, it's about time.

And so, in honour of Mr Floyd, whom everyone I've ever cooked for should thank (or curse, depending on how well I did on that occasion), I'll be raising a glass this evening. He did a huge amount for food culture in the UK, but more importantly for me, he helped show me that a carefully-prepared meal, of good ingredients, can lift you out of your day-to-day life and into somewhere very special indeed.

Snow, hard work again, honeymoon

Our last holiday until our honeymoon has just happened, and as most of you will already know from emails, Facebook and Twitter, it was an incredible four days spent at Mount Ruapehu, snowboarding, eating, drinking, snowboarding, and generally not being at work. This last bit was good, as it's been a fairly intense three months (only three months!!) and I was beginning to fear a little bit of burnout approaching.

So, for those of you who're not in New Zealand, Mount Ruapehu is an active volcano in the North Island, about four and a half hours' drive from Auckland on a good day. We were boarding at Turoa, and staying in Ohakune, about 20 minutes' drive down the hill and a genuinely lovely little town. The mountain's profile might be recognisable to some as Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings - it's more covered in snowboarders in real life.

To save a bit of time, we headed to Hamilton on Wednesday night, to stay with the Kiwi's sister and other half, which shortened the morning's drive by an hour or so and provided a great lasagne courtesy of the younger Kiwi. Stupidly early on Thursday we headed south, and some time after breakfast we could spot the mountain in the distance. We were on the hill by mid-morning, my initial nerves about having forgotten how to do it long gone by the end of the first run. That said, it was only December we were in Whistler.

Thursday was good - Friday was better. The snow was some of the best I've seen in all my three snowboarding trips; as good as Whistler at its best. They'd had 10cm on the Wednesday, and the perfect balance of clear, sunny days, cool temperatures and cold nights ensured it stayed deep and soft until we left. Saturday was good, but busy - obviously word had spread and the world and his dog had made the trip to the mountain. Sunday we managed a good breakfast before making an unhurried journey back home through stunning scenery.

Work, which we temporarily escaped, is intense. I can't speak for the Kiwi, although I know she's mentally busy, but for my part the pace and strain are fantastic. I've just convinced the business to hire another member of staff to support me, which should help, and with another project workstream about to kick off I'll need it, I think. Development is moving slowly even so, which is a bit of a concern as I'm burning through my credibility with every extra dollar I spend without showing a result. Hopefully I've built up enough of it to last another six weeks or so.

As for the last point - we have booked our honeymoon finally. Torn between heading from a southern hemisphere summer to the UK in February, and going to a beach not far from here, we chose the latter. We're going to Aitutaki, a tiny island north of Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands. Following a long time without any time off, and a wedding to boot, I think a week spent on a beach doing as close to nothing as possible will be just the thing.

Home Sweet Home

Although I've been a bit slack in terms of blogging recently, I'd hoped to be able to document the house-buying process as it unfolded, outlining the ups and downs, the excitement and disappointment etc etc etc. Unfortunately for the content of this blog, we've just bought one.

We've been going through open homes for a while now, traipsing through other peoples' houses several times a weekend, nosing through closets and tutting at wallpaper, diligently leaving our shoes at the door. Last weekend, we went to a few more, including one place in Point Chevalier which was a bit of a departure for us. Being naive foreigners (the Kiwi counts as a foreigner, having as much experience of housebuying in Auckland as I do), we'd been looking for one of the lovely old villas they have round here. Most of them have been done up to one standard or another, but in reality they're all 70+ years old and held together with plaster and old wallpaper paste in the main.

You can overlook all this to a degree, as most of them really are lovely houses. However, when you talk to someone who lives in one, words like draughty, cold, damp, money pit, mould and pleaseletmeliveinamodernhouse start to come out, so we thought we'd take a chance and look at a recently built place.

On Monday our offer was accepted:


It's a three-bedroomed free-standing place over two floors, with a little garden and a deck (just behind the fence on the left of the photo). The couple selling it are moving north of the harbour with their new baby, and have kept the place beautifully. Brilliantly, the HRV system they've installed keeps the house both warm and dry more or less all the time, something which I've come to see the value of during the cold, damp Auckland winter.

So there's one more stage of paperwork to get through, and with luck our offer will go unconditional on Monday. We'll be in by the end of September, having given the vendors a bit of time to find a new place of their own as we're in no desperate hurry to move. On that note, it's amazing to notice how much simpler and friendlier the New Zealand purchase process is than the English one. I say English advisedly, as I'm told that north of the border things are again simpler. There's no gazumping, no massive stress over completion and exchange dates. There are penalties levied if the agreed move-in date isn't kept to, and the party at fault is charged. The estate agent pretty much does the lot for you.

Your fiancée does a fair bit too, apparently. It's obviously hard work, as this (Saturday) morning she's looking very tired indeed and was quite incoherent when she got home this morning. Poor thing.

More on this as we get it. Today involves meeting a friend from the UK, who now lives in Melbourne, at the airport and pootling round Auckland for the rest of the day, which should be pleasant as it's beautifully sunny outside and the city will be sparkling and shining by the harbour. It might even be an opportunity to take the top down...

How is it nearly JULY already?

I promise this won't be a monthly thing - constantly harping on about the way time seems to be speeding up, when all along we know it's all part of the theory of relativity; the each passing month and year being, relatively speaking, a smaller part of the whole thing.

Anyway, things do seem to be going rather quickly. Like when, during a meeting with a mortgage advisor (another story...) this evening I said I'd been working for four weeks. The Kiwi corrected me with the actual story - six. Six weeks of brain-melting, mind-bending getting my head around not only the wacky world of insurance but a rather labyrinthine group of companies to boot. It's a weird one - a massive mental challenge in understanding stuff, but comparatively little in the way of stuff to, like, do. Still, I'm keeping myself busy by making outlandish promises and then struggling to keep up with them, usual story.

In other news, we have a dining room table! This is a bigger deal than it perhaps sounds, but I'll not go into the detail. Trust me, it's changed our lives. Eating sitting at a table still feels like a bit of a luxury. That, and being able to go places without cadging a lift off the Kiwi or ruining yet another pair of shoes. The car is turning out to be a lot of fun, something to look forward to at the end of the day. It's in the garage at the moment having its wheel alignment done, which I'm hoping will correct a little niggle it's been having lately where the power steering gets a bit twitchy.

Here's a thing for all of you back in the land of sensible driving: the New Zealanders are well known for their love of adrenalin sports, being the No.1 place in the world for life-threatening leisure pursuits. This extends to driving, apparently, with a road rule (A RULE!) which says that if you're turning right into a road, and an oncoming car is turning left into the same road, the oncoming car has to give way. They sort of slow down and tuck their car into the kerb, whilst you wait to see if they actually are stopping or not, and they keep moving because they don't know whether you're going to turn ahead of them or not, and then you both step on it at the same time and narrowly avoid a collision with either the car in question or one of the many which get bored of waiting and swerve around you both. This rule appears to be designed to make even the simplest manoevre something which gets the heart pumping and the adrenalin flowing. I'm not keen on it, as you might have guessed.

Other than that, not a lot's been going on. We work, we cook, we sleep. And it's brilliant.

How is it JUNE already?

Seriously, I turn around for five minutes and half the year's gone - is this what getting old's all about? A gentle nudge from my sister reminded me yesterday that I'd not actually posted anything in quite some time, let alone anything that wasn't about baking, so here we are - another post which might not be all about breadmaking.

Work has been taking up an indecent amount of my time lately, as I seem to remember it doing back in 2008, and on the whole things seem to be going well. The pace is somewhat slower than I'm used to, so on the one hand I can seem reasonably dynamic without too much effort, and on the other the stress levels probably aren't as high. The Kiwi, on the other hand, seems to spend her entire day moving at 100kph, so we're in slightly different zones for an hour or so once we get home.

What I'm doing at the moment isn't really for discussion this openly, but suffice it to say we're making some very definite plans to move forward, taking overall company strategy and working out ways to implement it in some hopefully market-changing ways. If my plans come together, all should become clear. Fingers crossed.

In other news, I bought a car today - my first one ever (aged 31). Living either in Manchester or London, both places with pretty good public transport networks, I've never really needed a car more than four or five times a year, so renting has always been good enough. However, living in Auckland, not having a car basically means you either remain confined to a walking distance around your house (during which you will get rained on), or put yourself at the mercy of public transport, which effectively means you will probably get where you want to go, but probably not before the moon has gone once around the earth.

So, and I know precisely who's going to take the piss at this point, I bought this:

Quite simply, I have always wanted a sports car. On the shopping list for me were the following:

• Engine in the back
• Two seats
• Roof that comes off

... and this little Toyota ticks all those boxes (even if it is technically mid-engined) and fits neatly into my price bracket. Whilst it's only a 1.8L, it weighs about as much as a matchbox and thus manages to be quite, um, quick, whilst the proportions make it superbly balanced. I drove four of them yesterday and any lingering doubt that I was doing the right thing went right out of the window. So, provided it passes its AA inspection next week, it will be mine before the weekend.

It has a frankly hilarious storage ability, about enough room for an overnight bag and a pork pie, but that's part of its charm, I reckon. Anyway, it's my first car. Forgive me for getting a bit gushy about it.

On the bread front (and I couldn't write a post without it), I've been baking every weekend, with the exception of the one we went away for recently (to Mount Maunganui, by the seaside). The bread's getting steadily better, with the flavour deepening and mellowing, and the texture getting more relaxed and open. I have two loaves proving right now in fact, basking in the glow of our electric heater along with the Kiwi. It's cold here at the moment, cold and sunny, and our electric heater, oil-filled heater and dehumidifier have been working overtime. Can't wait to see our power bill for this month...

Brilliant

The waiting is over - this week I agreed terms with an employer, and I start work on the 19th May. After five months of not working, this is an overwhelming relief. We're not entirely out of the woods yet though, as there are bills to be paid at the end of this month which my pro-rated pay won't cover, but hopefully a client for whom I've been doing a little work back in the UK will actually bother to pay me for it at some point during this month.

I don't think I'd realised quite how much being unemployed had affected me. Friends of mine have told me in the past that my job (whatever it was at the time) was always far too important to me, and it's true to an extent that my sense of self-worth is entirely wrapped up in what I do for a living. So to be out of work, to me, is to have no social worth. Entertainingly, I don't view other people like this - this rule only applies to me, you understand. The Kiwi and I had a celebratory curry on Thursday night and I realised that I was smiling properly for the first time in ages; smiling with total happiness, without that lurking feeling that had been telling me up to this point that, until I had a job, I had nothing to smile about.

So I suppose there should be a learning experience here in finding self-worth in places other than the workplace, but I suspect I'll not really take it on board. This is the usual way of things.

And what of the job? Well, suffice it to say it's in the insurance industry, and involves me forming and implementing a strategy for the online channel. Currently the online arm of the business is... me, but over time it'll need to grow. The main challenge in moving a mainly offline business to a true multi-channel one is predominantly a cultural one, and although the top level of this organisation is open to the concept, it'll be convincing the troops that'll be the 'pushing water uphill' element of this particular engagement, I suspect.

I'm going to remain coy in this forum about who it is, so I can be reasonably open about how it's going, but most of you probably know. Very excited about starting indeed, they're a good bunch of people from what I can see, with a very clear and pragmatic view on the next steps for their business. Prior to that, though, I have a week of genuine holiday to get through, so with that, it's back to my baking... on which more later!

Back on the horse

I'd not actually realised quite how long it's been since my last post. It's been a little strange, but I've been trying to get started again for a week or so, but for some reason haven't been able to crack it. I think it's got something to do with the volume of stuff that's going on at the moment; it's having a sort of 3 Stooges effect, where everything tries to get through the door at once but nothing can.

In a nutshell, since the last post, the following things have occurred, which most of you following Twitter and/or Facebook will already know, but here we go, in no particular order:

1. The Kiwi's got better
2. We've found a flat
3. We've bought a sofa, a fridge, a washing machine, a bed and a TV, along with a whole load of much less interesting stuff
4. The Kiwi's bought a car
5. We've each met with numerous recruiters, with varying degrees of success
6. We've planted some spinach and some spring onions - I'm drying some chillies to plant the seeds too
7. We've had another engagement party (any excuse)
8. We've eaten pies (multiple)
9. We've been to the beach (frequently)
10. I've got a New Zealand driver's license (looks a lot like the EU one)
    
11. I've been blogging a bit at http://www.eatingauckland.com
12. Our shipping arrived, with the only thing broken being a salad server, not bad out of 48 boxes
13. We've unpacked most of it
14. I've got back into Mario Kart and Guitar Hero
15. I've got hold of some English Marmite, but I'm not entirely sure it's quite the same...

You may notice the omission of the crucial 'we've found jobs' point, which is because we haven't yet, something that's soon to move from frustrating into problematic. The economic situation over here is pretty awful, it's true, but mostly due to lack of confidence and a bit of scaremongering. The exchange rate's not great (for New Zealanders), but realistically it's not as bad as the media would have you believe. Nonetheless, business in general is declining to commit to much expenditure, and some organisations are using the situation as an excuse for 'pro-active cost cutting', ie restructuring. The employment laws here are notoriously strict, so much like in the UK, it's hard to get rid of someone useless once you've employed them. The opportunity to make people redundant is apparently too much to resist for some.

So on the whole it's been very quiet on that front. At the moment I'm having a positive-looking conversation with a business that I'm quite keen to be involved with, so we'll see how that goes. More news as we get it.

Day 2, Kiwi on drugs

Our second day of reality in Auckland. Over the weekend, the Kiwi was bodysurfing at Pauanui (something she's irritatingly good at), and she apparently managed to damage some cartilage in her ribcage. Following a long walk this morning, the dull ache turned into agonising pain, so much so that she couldn't move at all without hurting. It got so bad today that I took her to a doctor, who diagnosed the problem, prescribed no fewer than three different painkillers to be taken together, and told her not to do anything energetic for at least two to three weeks, taking painkillers constantly, remembering to breathe and trying not to get pneumonia and so on.

Apparently unloading boxes and moving into a new home comes under the heading 'anything energetic', so getting our 48 boxes moved around might be interesting. Still, she's fully spaced out at the moment and experiencing the joys of prescribed chemicals, which is better than lying down in what looked like unbelievable pain, so she's on the mend, I think. My only real concern is that, true to form, she'll be unable to actually rest for longer than, ooh, 30 minutes at a time, so I'll be enforcing some serious 'do-nothing' rules for the coming three weeks. After which I'll be waited on hand and foot, oh yes.

On the job front, had a meeting with a (rubbish) recruiter this morning, which was good only in that it reminded me what wearing a suit was like again, and helped brush up my skills in talking about work things, which are a bit rusty at the moment after 5 or 6 weeks off. Interestingly, had a call from an old acquaintance which might prove profitable as well, taking me up to three opportunities about which I'm quite excited. Next week everyone here comes back from holiday, so I'm taking it reasonably easy this week and expecting more to happen as of the 12th. Which, by the way, I'll be starting a fair way before those of you in the UK. Ha.

Auckland - reality looms

And so finally, here we are. Just over a week ago, we arrived in Auckland, and stayed one night before heading off to a beachside apartment at Pauanui, on the Coromandel Peninsula. New Year's week featured sea swims, walks up Mount Pauanui, a fair bit of lying around in the sun and the attendant rounds of barbeques, beers and so on. Absolutely superb. Although it doesn't really do it justice, here's the view from our bedroom. The beach is just over that grassy patch. The Kiwi took loads of photos, so there'll be some coming up on Facebook or Flickr or wherever we end up putting them. My brother kindly sorted us out with a Flickr account for Christmas, so we'll give that a whirl I think.

I came back yesterday, in order to attend a stag do in Auckland (much fun), the Kiwi's back today attending the hen version. Tomorrow, we officially begin non-holiday life in New Zealand, starting with NZ mobile phones and graduating to things like flats, cars and jobs. Currently we're staying with friends, which is a bit of a godsend and very much appreciated, but we're both longing for a time when we can put clothes away without knowing we have to repack them in a week's time.

We've even been looking enviously at some pretty fine barbeques, too... but one step at a time, I think. This is where it gets interesting; the sooner we're both in paid employment, the sooner we can actually relax and get on with building our life together.

In other news, dinner out last night turned out to be quite good despite being a stag event, so I took the opportunity of kicking off my other blog, Eating Auckland. Best culinary find so far is a superb hot sauce by the name of Kaitaia Fire - powerfully hot but possessing a deep smoky, citrussy flavour all of its own. I can confidently say this will be the first thing in our new fridge, at such as time as we have one of our own.

End phase two...

Isn't technology weird? Here I am in Vancouver airport, happily connected to the gloriously free wi-fi they have here, whilst for some reason Vodafone seem unable to allow me to make or receive calls or text messages whilst I'm here. Bizarre.

Anyway, lack of mobile-ness aside (which hasn't really bothered me tbh), it's been a terrific week. When we arrived on Monday, the temperatures were somewhere around freezing in Whistler village, and we got a fair bit of snow through Tuesday to Friday, which meant that by and large the runs were gorgeous, with snow like icing sugar, tons of dry powder and only the odd bit of treacherously hard ice on the upper slopes. The Peak to Peak Gondola opened on Friday too, linking Whistler and Blackcomb mountains and reducing the time necessary to get from one peak to the other from over an hour to 11 minutes. More of an event for them (it's a big part of their 2010 Winter Olympics things) than for us, but a bit of a diversion nonetheless. After the opening ceremony, we headed across to Blackcomb, where I slid down most of a totally ice-covered run on my back and promptly decided it was time to call it a day.

By Saturday the temperatures were down at around -14C in the village and below -25C on the mountain (plus (or minus?) wind chill), so we managed one long-ish run before our feet froze and we couldn't control our boards properly. The wind made it a bit tricky too, every now and then practically stopping us in our tracks with its force.

Sunday morning we decided we were definitely not going back up, so we went to the pub instead.

My second week of snowboarding has seen me acquire a fresh new array of bruises, although not as many and varied as the first week, in Italy last year. This time it's mostly knees, elbows and arse, and I think that on the whole I fell over a bit less than last time, so who knows, I might be improving. The new board and boots help, definitely, very impressed with both. I managed to whack my head on a particularly hard bit of ice on Thursday too, which has made me think that perhaps a helmet might be in order next time.

The Kiwi also tells me that I've lost some of the deeper, darker lines under my eyes too, ones that apparently had been there for months, so something's going right, I think. I'm sure though, that the next 21 hours' travelling will put them right back there... 3.5 hours to LA, 3 hours in LA, 13 hours to Brisbane... with any luck we'll be able to sleep through most of the last leg.

Last night in the UK

This is weird. Very weird indeed. After a week in Manchester, where I grew up and still call home, I'm about to leave the UK. This is my last night as a resident of the United Kingdom, and for the first time in this whole process, I'm genuinely excited. Speaking to people up until now, everyone's said 'this must be so exciting', and my response has always been a dutiful 'yes, it is'. The truth, though, was always something different.

You see, the word isn't quite right. Excited is what you feel on your birthday morning. On Christmas Day. Unfettered positivity, happiness, joy etc. The feeling I've had isn't quite that - there's been lots of positive stuff, yes, about the future, the quality of life, the ability to finally settle, starting a very grown up life with the Kiwi, but along with all that was the sadness of leaving my family and friends here, of friendships that have just started and those that've lasted many years, and in particular putting distance in between me and my family, who mean so very much to me and on whom I depend probably more than they know.

This week has been one of saying goodbye to those people, and it's been painful in the worst way. Not the quick pain of whipping a plaster off, but a long, drawn-out ache, a week of catching people's eyes mid-conversation and both thinking the same thing, of last hugs that neither wants to end, of tears and the hope this isn't as final as it feels.

Tonight we're staying at Yoog's with his wife and son, as we have been for the past few nights. It's fantastic that we can spend this time having dinner with one of my oldest and closest friends, in such a calm, welcoming atmosphere, drinking brilliant wine and, from the smell of the cooking downstairs, soon to be eating excellent food. Tomorrow we drive to London, fly to Vancouver, and begin a phase of our lives we've talked about, dreamed about, and planned for for years.

Now I'm excited.

Explanation

Following on from yesterday's brief post, let me go into a bit more detail about the shape the next few weeks are going to take. As I've worked with laptops provided by work for the past four years or so, I've not had to buy a computer of my own since, like, 1999, so the prospect of leaving my place of work and subsequently having no computer was a bit daunting.

So I put aside a bit of cash to buy one, and mentioning this to my current work, they told me not to worry, I could buy my laptop off them for about a quarter of my budget. Nice. Thing is, I found out yesterday that their policy is actually not to sell laptops to leavers; something we could have done with knowing before we shipped the Kiwi's laptop to NZ.

So I got a bit stressy about it and generally acted like the world had come to an end and so on. And then I realised that it's not all that bad - I have an iTouch which can deal with emails and internet access, and there'll be the odd PC available most of the places we're going. And it's saved me a fair bit of cash too.

The upshot of this is that, whilst I'd hoped to be entirely blogtastic during my travels, it might be a little less prolific than I'd intended. Posting from the iTouch, whilst mainly very convenient, doesn't lend itself to particularly wordy posts. That said, I'm sure that's no bad thing where I'm concerned!

Stuff moves on here in the UK, this week's mentally busy for me and I can feel the physical effects of several flavours of stress building up. The Kiwi's under slightly different stress at her place, but stress all the same.

More later - last post from this machine on Friday, perhaps...

The last week in London

I can't believe it's been two weeks since my last post. It seems like about five minutes. Five very packed minutes, but nonetheless it's gone by very quickly. It's been a fortnight of catching up with people, saying goodbyes, spending too much money, getting stupidly busy at work and generally not stopping once. Both of us are knackered.

So here we are at the start of our last week in London, for both of us our last week at work, and I can't speak for the Kiwi but I'm feeling a bit emotionally numb right now. There's been so much stuff twanging around my head for the last few months that it's almost like I'm becoming acclimatised to all this, or maybe I'm just coping with it all by studiously ignoring it.

Anyway, this week is about tying off loose ends at work, trying to close off my UK tax stuff, trying to remember if we've sorted all the last bills out, changing addresses, our last few drinks with various friends, and our last meal at the brilliant Turkish restaurant near our house. With our flat all empty and bare, and the weather doing that peculiarly British thing of just being... crap, I'm sort of keen to get moving, if I'm honest. With our worldly goods either on their way to New Zealand or in suitcases on our bedroom floor, it feels like we're properly IN the process now. There's quite a lot of it to go, though, and hopefully I'll be near enough wireless networks as we go to keep you updated.

Big Milestone: The Visa Has Landed

Very quickly, as this is the third post today and that's all just a bit extra: my passport came back from New Zealand Immigration today, complete with a two-year returning residence permit. That means that I can live in New Zealand, leaving and returning freely, for two years. After that, I go on to be assessed for a permanent one.

What a relief. I have to confess I got a bit emotional on leaving the embassy (not outwardly shown, of course), as the excitement of leaving began to feel really real, and some of that stress started to melt away. When I got down into Piccadilly tube station, a fairly good busker was knocking out a pretty good version of Here Comes The Sun, and I dug into my pocket and dropped all my change into his guitar case. Something I never do, but as I said I was feeling a bit emotional. Anyway, how very appropriate.

Also, the Kiwi's new snowboard arrived today, and all packed up, our snowboard case weighs in at around 0.25kg under our limit, AND I got an overdraft charge withdrawn from one of my banks, so all in all it's been a pretty productive day.

Shipping Vol.1

I wasn't going to blog about this until it'd happened - rather than leave you on tenterhooks - but I'm so nervous about the whole thing I can't help it. It's moving day today, and whilst I'm at work fretting, the Kiwi's in our flat, presumably trying to make sure all the right bits get shipped.

Fortunately, we've gone for a slightly more expensive but probably more professional bunch of movers, who're packing all our shipping stuff up for us, so all we really had to do over the weekend was separate out everything we're going to carry with us when we go, but even that was no small order. At the moment, our best guess for when we'll see our stuff again is about 10 weeks, and in that time we've got work in cold London, snowboarding in cold Canada, beach in hot Australia, beach in hot New Zealand, interviews in hot New Zealand and potentially even work too.

That's pretty much my whole wardrobe, and Sonya's too, so with baggage allowances, we've had to make some compromises (and you know how much I hate that). Here's hoping we can carry it all come December - we're literally right on our weight allowance, so we're not allowed to buy or otherwise acquire anything in the coming four weeks.

More on this once it's gone, and the empty flat's weirding me out. On a more optimistic note, we're going to see Goldfrapp tonight at Brixton, so hopefully that'll take our minds off it. Much like a pair of cats with buttered paws.

Last Supper (sort of)

I'm a simple chap at heart, and in general it doesn't take a lot to keep me happy. This sort of explains why, at 0630 on Saturday morning I was wide awake and heading for the kitchen, all wide-eyed and excited by the prospect of chopping, roasting, reducing and boiling stuff for the rest of the day. Which is exactly what I did.

The event was the last dinner party I'll cook in my own kitchen, and E&T, who I know from Oddbins days, were coming up all the way from darkest Surrey, so I thought I should do it properly: haricot bean and tiger prawn soup followed by venison with chocolate sauce, followed by the Kiwi's amazing lime mousse, and some carefully chosen cheeses from various Borough Market stalls.

Wines were Ruinart NV to start, then a superb new white Burgundy with the soup, and d'Arenberg's 'Dead Arm' Shiraz from 1998 and 2003 with the venison. We moved on to a tremendous Southern French beast with the cheese, and then, possibly ill-advisedly, continued on with Port Ellen and Ardbeg for a bit too long.

Sunday was a bit of a write-off. But it was SO worth it.

This weekend we'll be packing up all that kitchen stuff (and some other bits and pieces), because some men are coming round on Monday morning to take it all away. Ten weeks later, customs and quarantine and bureaucracy notwithstanding, it'll arrive on our (or to be more precise, some kind friends') doorstep. The interim weeks, involving London winter, Canadian snow, Australian summer, New Zealand summer, interviews and so on, we'll be living out of suitcases, which poses an interesting wardrobe conundrum.

It'll be fine. I'm sure it will.

Curry, wine: Edinburgh

WHAT a weekend. After a fairly legendary lunch with my boss on Friday afternoon (finalising the deliverables for the coming four weeks or so...), I kicked off the weekend by watching the brilliant Spaceballs with the Kiwi. I'd forgotten how shamelessly puerile that film is, possibly one of the last spoof films whose tone is 'gently mocking', rather than simply vicious or way over the top.

Saturday morning involved a train to Edinburgh, all six hours of it, and that evening we caught up for a curry with my brother and his wife. Both were on sterling form and blessed with a superb local Bangladeshi restaurant. One of the things that's been bothering me 'n' the Kiwi lately is that it seems to be impossible to get a decent Indian or Chinese meal in London unless you're in the market for a £60+ a head dinner. It's a real treat to be able to get back to good, local food again.

Excellent to see them both too - it's been years since I saw either of them, and it's the first time they've met the Kiwi. Good to knock back a few whiskies with my brother too, for the first time in waaaay too long.

The Oddbins wine fair on the Sunday was a whole lot of fun as always, smaller than in previous years (or perhaps I've just got bigger), but the old crew were still there as always. The range is looking a fair bit better than it did in April (at the London version), with some astounding French wines on the way for once, and the German range finally worth a look. It's fair to say though, that these last two are more indicative of trends within the countries in question, but Oddbins has been notably light in these areas for the past few years, so it's refreshing to see something interesting there.

We ended up buying a mixed case. Quite what's in it I've very little idea.

Stress notches up, application submitted...

This morning I took a big file full of carefully collated stuff to the New Zealand embassy in London, and submitted my application for a permanent resident's visa, on the basis of my relationship with the Kiwi. £460 lighter, and the wheels are in motion.

The process is unfortunately extremely lengthy. It'll take them two to three weeks to get a case officer assigned to my application. They'll then look over all the documentation and assess whether I look healthy, intelligent, crime-free and sufficiently enamoured of my Kiwi to be allowed in. They'll get in touch with me, and will let me know how long and arduous the process is likely to be. Timescales from this point in are, at the moment, about three months, but it's fairly open-ended in reality.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that that takes us beyond our departure date, but apparently that's ok. I can get into New Zealand on a tourist visa, as long as I have a valid ticket out of there, but I won't be able to start work until it's processed. Provided everything goes smoothly, this will be ok. If things don't go smoothly, this will most definitely not be ok.

So, not ideal, but ok. Worryingly, the lady who took my application mentioned that some of my blood results were marginally outside the normal range, and that they've been very strict on that lately. I may be asked to undergo (and pay for, presumably) another medical, but right now I'm focusing on that not being necessary. I am a big pile of stress and nerves and freak-out at the moment and I really just want this all to be over. More on this as I get it...

Half marathon done, legs falling off

Well, there we have it. My first half marathon completed in the pouring rain, wind, cold etc, in what the Kiwi and I think was about 1hr 52mins or thereabouts. I can't verify this yet as the organisers continue to compound what was a pretty poor event by not telling anyone their times. Judging by the forum posts on the website, it's unlikely we'll get them at all, as some people have had texts, some people haven't, and most people seem to have been sent the wrong times. If the data's that messed up, it won't get unmessed any time soon.*

Still, I know I beat 2hrs, which was my goal all along, so I'm relatively happy. The pain in my legs, hips, knees, shoulders and feet all feels sort of worth it, especially as the non-localised muscle pain suggests that I've not damaged anything significant. That said, I've never experienced pain quite like the final four miles or so. It felt almost solid, like something I could hold onto or bite down on, quite a new feeling for me. The weirdest moment was right at the end, coming across the line and slowing down, and feeling the endorphins wearing off as the pain notched up every few minutes. Amazing things, bodies, eh?

As I mentioned though, the event management was a bit of a shocker. Looking through the website this morning has reminded me of a few things. Firstly, that the distance most runners with GPS's ran was actually about half a mile longer than stated, so it's not actually a true half marathon, and the mile markers were all wrongly places, so we couldn't pace properly. Secondly, that no one had the faintest idea where to start - I stood in the rain for about 40 minutes and ended up near the start - other runners had to jog/walk for about half an hour before they got anywhere near the start line. Thirdly, that the course is listed as 'mainly flat' when in reality it had some pretty mean hills in it. It was compounded by the weather (drizzle turning into torrential downpour) and the transport issues (the whole tube network being snarled up, pretty much), but even without these things it was pretty poorly handled.

In fact, some kind soul has detailed the route here: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2248895, showing not only a half-mile extra, but also the distinctly not 'mainly flat' elevation.

Anyway, I'm happy with my time, as I said. I reckon I need to do another one before too long though, and to prepare for the next one properly. I can honestly say I did no training for this one at all, and I reckon I could aim for 1hr 40min without too much trouble. The Kiwi was absolutely brilliant throughout, waiting in the rain for me to start, hurrying to meet me at just past the halfway mark, and hurrying back to catch me at the finish, all on her own in the rain (everyone else, supporters and runners alike, had dropped out due to illness, transport issues or general can't-be-arsed-ness). I can't tell you how good it was to see her bouncing up and down and yelling encouraging things half way through.

So that's the last event for this year. The next scheduled bit of physical exercise will be snowboarding in December... then I think I'll have to look for another half marathon to run in Auckland!

 

 

*edit: the provisional results came out at 1630 on the 6th Oct, and show my full time as 01:54:35. Still happy with it, puts me in the top 25% anyway. Looks like I need to work on my tactics though, as I passed the halfway mark at position 1413, and the finish line at 1795.

Visa worries, cathartic blog post

We're almost down to two months out before we leave - two months and one week, give or take a day. Still left on the to-do list (amongst things too numerous to mention) is the tricky issue of a New Zealand visa. Now, were we to start the application process now, we'd stand a bit of a chance of getting it sorted before we leave. As it is, I still need to get a medical in order to apply.

Not just any medical, you see. This is a full-on, total head to toe MOT given by one of only two clinics in London which are authorised to do it, costing £250, and involving laboratory work which can take weeks. That's assuming they don't need to have me back for more tests. So as you can imagine, I'm a bit stressed.

On the whole though, I'm reasonably calm about the whole thing. There are nerves, yes absolutely, and I'm about 85% terrified. The thought of leaving my friends and family is horrible, and things like seeing a friend's baby boy last weekend, and knowing that he's basically not going to know me when he's growing up, really set me off.

And yes, the opposite is also true. The thought of bringing up my own children without my family, and without friends I've known since school, is hard to deal with.

But the thing is, I've been through this all in my head over and over again for years now. For so many reasons (not least that I'm completely in love with the Kiwi) I know this is absolutely the right thing for me. Also, staying here in the UK, I couldn't see myself actually getting to the point of children at all. There are so many reasons why I'm looking forward to the move, and I'm never more excited than when things are going right. That said, I'm prone to being a bit doom-y about things sometimes, and when there's as much at stake as there is right now, it doesn't take a lot to go wrong for me to let all the scary thoughts get a bit overwhelming.

So this is what's left to do, the big bits, anyway, and in no particular order:

• Medical
• Visa
• Bank account (international & NZ)
• Job interviews for January
• Saving (more)
• Shipping
• Buying stuff (laptop, mainly)

Not all that bad, when you look at it in list form. I've got an appointment for my medical next week, which is a bit of a relief. The saving thing's a bit of a challenge too, given the amount of various things (the visa's £460 too) we need to pay for between now and then. I'm also counting on a fairly significant bonus payment before I leave, which in this economic climate isn't quite as sure a thing as it was.

Anyway, thought I'd document what's going on. This blog was always supposed to be about documenting transitional periods and so on, and there are few bigger changes one can make to ones life than this. Expect more, hopefully bearing mostly good news...